My goal is to inform potential law school students and applicants of the ugly realities of attending law school. DO NOT ATTEND UNLESS: (1) YOU GET INTO A TOP 8 LAW SCHOOL ON SCHOLARSHIP; (2) YOU GET A FULL-TUITION SCHOLARSHIP TO ATTEND; (3) YOU HAVE EMPLOYMENT AS AN ATTORNEY SECURED THROUGH A RELATIVE OR CLOSE FRIEND; OR (4) YOU ARE FULLY AWARE BEFOREHAND THAT YOUR HUGE INVESTMENT IN TIME, ENERGY, AND MONEY DOES NOT, IN ANY WAY, GUARANTEE A JOB AS AN ATTORNEY OR IN THE LEGAL INDUSTRY.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Position: Desperate Lawyer Needed

Desperate Lawyer NeededAssociate Attorney to work hard for little pay in primitive conditions with no benefits.Sense of humor required.Email one page resume to christy@skinnerlegal.com(Previous applicants need not reapply). B'ham (Homewood)Civil Practice - no domestic, no criminal

Yeah, I suppose a sense of humor is required if someone has spent 7+ years of their life on post-secondary education, accumulated immense student loan debt, passed the bar, and jumped through all the various hoops to be an attorney and then is expected to work hard for little pay and NO BENEFITS. In "primitive conditions," no less. I can see how a sense of humor would come in handy.

Isn’t this great? Now, aren’t you happy that you decided to go to law school and enter such a secure, financially-rewarding, yet mentally-stimulating “profession?” If you know anyone who is considering law school, please show them this link. If you know anyone at work or in your social group who says proudly, “My niece is getting ready to apply to law school,” PLEASE print off the job posting and leave it on their desk. I would suggest posting this on TLS, but the lemmings and trolls there are INTENT on going to law school, even in the face of reality.

This ad is important – it is posted in the Classifieds section of the state bar’s website. It indicates that even the state bar association is admitting, “The game is up, kids.” Obviously, the bar wants the ad revenue. But the fact that it is on their website is an obvious sign that the lawyer market is over-saturated.

7 comments:

I've stopped logging on to TLS, and sometimes even JD Underground ticks me off. There's no convincing these people. They were all like me. I had some inkling that the market would be tough when I graduated, but I rationalized that I'd at least be in a better market position that I was at the time. I tell you, even if all 200 law schools closed its doors for the next five years, we'd still have an oversupply of those who are certified esq's and jobless.

Nando, what's your take on Above the Law? They're good at getting the stories out, but they don't hit hard enough regarding the law school scam. They have so many opportunities, but I think they don't want to portray themselves as big law bashing.

As former Big Law, I can tell you that we all follow ATL religiously and their number one concern is not to piss off Big Law Firms. They have deleted comments that were to crass or called out big firms and they ALWAYS underestimate the size of layoffs and give BIGLAW the benefit of the doubt. I think it's because they often call BIGLAW for comments and the phones would be hung up if they were too against BIGLAW and the system (including law school scams). I guess they are trying to be fair... ya right. They should do they right thing there because they definitely have the ear of the majority of lawyers and law students.

Nando, you are a true humanitarian for trying to approach potential law slaves with the truth. I think you need to get an award too!

ATL does plenty of griping against the law school "scam". (of which, I believe only ttt or lower can consistently be called a scam, while higher ranked schools are more akin to raffle drawings or as high odds as coin tosses).

Most recently they had blog entries pointing out that UMASS law school and Belmont Law would be bad ideas.

In addition, there was "More Law Schools + More Lawyers + Recession = FUBAR"

There's also plenty of griping about loan forgiveness. So ATL is reasonably balanced.

Objective

This blog is maintained by a graduate of a third tier law school. My goal is to educate prospective law students about the perils of obtaining a legal education. There are many pitfalls - the debt load, the oversupply of lawyers, the fact that there are not enough legal jobs to satisfy nearly 45,000 annual law graduates, and the reality that the majority of law school graduates will end up with low-paying jobs upon completion of their "legal studies."